Gop Nomination

ARTICLES ABOUT GOP NOMINATION BY DATE - PAGE 2

Some of the names are familiar — Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, Paul, Trump. Others are less familiar — Bachmann, Barbour, Pawlenty, Daniels, Santorum. While still others are largely unknown — Huntsman, Johnson, Cain, Thune, Roemer, Pence. What they all share in common, however, is their membership in the largest class of Republican presidential aspirants in more than 40 years. Not since 1968 has the GOP produced such a bumper crop of presidential contenders. Will the eventual nominee emerge after a spirited battle from an open competition across a field of some 20 hopefuls?

Republican Mike Fitzpatrick will face Bucks County Congressman Patrick Murphy in a rematch of the contest that first sent the Democrat to Washington four years ago. With 19 percent of precincts reporting, Fitzpatrick garnered 79 percent of vote, fending off his biggest rival for the nomination, Gloria Carlineo, who had 14 percent, unofficial vote totals show. Financial planner Ira Hoffman and James Jones, a veteran and a businessman, combined for about 7 percent. "I'm overwhelmed by the magnitude of the support the voters have given me today," he said.

For the first time since the mid-1970s, the state representative that Carbon County voters send to Harrisburg won't be named McCall. Five Democrats and two Republicans hope to succeed House Speaker Keith McCall, who in 1981 took over for his father, the late Thomas J. McCall. The candidates for the 122nd District seat have focused primarily on property tax reform and job creation. County Coroner Bruce Nalesnik and Justin Yaich, president of Jim Thorpe Borough Council, raised the most money, finance reports show.

A former assistant Bucks County prosecutor and Marine reservist who served in Iraq announced his candidacy Tuesday for the Republican nomination for the 8th Congressional District. Dean Malik said it's time to return a Republican to the district and criticized the direction of the country since President Barack Obama was elected last year. "They have taken it upon themselves to reinvent, modify and tamper with this American dream," he said outside the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown.

A pair of open congressional seats in eastern Pennsylvania has both parties eyeing pick-up opportunities next year as a parade of declared and potential candidates jockey for early support. Leaving their seats are U.S. Reps. Jim Gerlach, R-6th District, and Joe Sestak, D-7th District, both of whom are running statewide in 2010 -- Gerlach for governor, Sestak for Senate. Already, a half-dozen candidates have emerged to replace them. In the 6th, a district Democrats have targeted since it was redrawn in 2002, former Philadelphia Inquirer editorial writer Doug Pike has pumped $510,000 of his own money into the contest and collected endorsements from high-profile area Democrats, including Reps.

U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach has put a fork in any plans to run for the U.S. Senate, telling The Morning Call on Wednesday that he will decide next month whether to pursue re-election in the House or a bid for governor in 2010. "That is pretty much off the table," Gerlach, in an interview, said of a Senate run, which has lingered as a possibility since U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party in late April. Asked if he would definitely run either for the House or governor of Pennsylvania, Gerlach, R-6th District, responded: "I think that would be safe to say."

It's official. Bob Smith, the apparently successful write-in candidate in the May 19 primary for a Quakertown Community School District board seat, has been declared the winner on both ballots. Smith, 53, of Milford Township, defeated first-term incumbent Manuel Alfonso for the Democratic and Republican nominations for the Region 2 seat, knocking him off the ballot for the Nov. 3 election. Asked about his seemingly improbable quest launched a week before the primary, he said he wasn't sure he would win. "I don't think it would have turned out this way, either," Smith said Thursday.

By G. Terry Madonna and Michael Young Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | December 11, 2008

For state Republicans running for it, it's a safe bet a sure thing; for incumbents in it, it's a dead-end road to electoral nowhere. It's Pennsylvania's office of attorney general. No other office in the modern history of the state has been so completely dominated by one party, while so thoroughly lacking in any electoral future for its incumbents. The attorney general has been an elective office since 1980 and has been filled only by Republicans across eight consecutive elections.

Thomas Manion, a Marine Corps Reserve colonel whose son was killed in Iraq last year, today plans to announce his candidacy for Congress against Rep. Patrick Murphy, the institution's only Iraq war veteran, according to sources. A 53-year-old pharmaceutical executive at Johnson & Johnson, Manion has been in discussions with local and national Republican Party leaders for months about the prospect of running for the 8th District Bucks County seat. He is planning a news conference at 2 p.m. today in the kitchen of his Doylestown Township home.

By Josh Drobnyk and Scott Kraus Of The Morning Call | January 14, 2008

Bucks County Republicans are wooing a Marine Corps Reserve colonel whose son was killed in Iraq last year to challenge freshman Democratic congressman and Iraq war veteran Patrick Murphy. The recruiting effort is one of three taking place in area congressional districts as the parties scramble to nail down challengers with a little over a week before candidates begin circulating nomination petitions. Both parties have been trying for months to recruit challengers in the districts -- Bucks County's 8th, Berks County's 6th and Carbon and Monroe counties' 11th.